Thoughts on Disaster Prep

Me, I only lost power for 12 hours, but seeing how long it took other places made me realize that, well, I'm not nearly as prepared as I should be. The biggest thing with a loss of power, this time of year, is the loss of heat. No power, no furnace. No furnace, no heat, since the fireplace is gas with an electric control and no chmney. If I was single, I could hack it, but with a family, especially two small kids, it's an entirely different matter. If the outage in my area had lasted into the next night, I probably would have been sending my wife and the boys to her parents, where they had a wood stove and a generator (good thing too, because last I heard-Tues-they still didn't have power).

Even if I had a generator (something I'm looking into very hard), in the event of an earthquake, which would likely cut the gas as well, I'd still be SOL. And in that case, evac'ing the wife and kids to the in laws might not be possible, due to potential damage to the road infrastructure. So I'm doing some very serious assessment at this point.

What He Said

So here is what you, President Bush, should do: take as a model the Cuban Missile Crisis. First John Kennedy, then Adlai Stevenson, laid before the world the evidence, in the form of aerial photographs, that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear arms in Cuba. The proof was taken as conclusive, and, consequently, the Kennedy administration's actions enjoyed universal support at home, and widespread support abroad.

Do something similar here. Commandeer a half hour in prime time to tell the American people, and the world, that we have clear evidence of Iran's involvement in killing American servicemen. Show the captured munitions. Explain exactly how they have contributed to American casualties. Display aerial photos of the training camps. No doubt there is much more evidence that can be presented or described.

You should say that Iran's supplying of weapons in order to kill Americans is an act of war. In the dramatic finale of your speech, announce that thirty minutes earlier, American airplanes stationed in the Middle East took off, their destination, one of the munitions plants or training camps of which you have shown pictures. That training camp, you say, no longer exists. You say that if Iran does not immediately cease all support for, and fomenting of, violence in Iraq, we will continue to strike military targets inside Iran.

Personnally, part of that first wave would be massive strikes to neutralize any Iranian anti-ship missile launchers able to reach the shipping lanes of the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz, followed by naval and air force facilities, because we know Iran plans to try to hold the world's oil hostage. And everytime we hit a munitions plant or terrorist training camp, we send a JDAM or Tomahawk into one of the mullahs', or better yet, Ahma-alphabet's homes.